Stories and News No. 1176
It's war. That is, there is war, because we are talking about it again.
But this does not mean that there was not already here.
Because peace has a price, so the silence of newspapers and parliaments all over the world. And, sorry, it is still called war too.
So let's go away, but only to come back soon, I promise.
Perhaps with a lighter heart, though filled to the brim, and less closed eyes.
Once upon a time, therefore, two children. Because that is what we are dealing with. An eternal and tireless child's play, but with very serious rules and often tragic consequences.
It is a particular pastime, though, since time insists to stop it, rather than facilitating its run, ending up trapping the hands of the human watch by doing the same with the wings we could open, if only we had believed Icarus's dream.
Anyway it is a brick game. Of cement, clay or plastic it makes no difference, although the latter has the further contraindication of pollution.
The very young challengers, just as ambitious and naive, have two perfectly contrasting roles.
We could call them in a lot of ways, but I hope ‘you’ and ‘I’ will make things easier and more understandable to most people. Well, it should be the first rule of a good storyteller.
In any case, this ancient entertainment begins according to the script.
You put two bricks between us, I distract you with a nice grimace and take one out.
You notice the shortcoming and add three more with an aggressive and peremptory gesture.
I stretch myself and then I start the characteristic dance of the convulsive forehead, an art conceived by the semi-unknown tribe of thought-harrowing thinkers.
You raise your head for a second and I take this opportunity to remove at least a couple of bricks.
Then I get a cramp on my imagination and I fall to the ground. You laugh at me and, at the same time, you guide your gaze on the playing field.
You count the bricks that are missing, you rant and threateningly put your hand to your stocks; then you place six bricks on the line that separates us.
"Wall!" You exclaim. "There is a wall between us."
"I see it," I note. "There is a wall and it was there before."
Exactly like the war of this short story’s incipit.
However, I do not desist. I can’t, I don't have to.
We cannot and we must not.
Because we are the only ones left there, on the most vulnerable side of the border.
So, I catch my breath, gather my strength and, above all, look for the courage inside of me.
But where did I put it? Oops, here it is, I see it there, hidden under noise and solitude.
Two other bricks, in some ways, very heavy, although elusive.
Courage, on the other hand, as opposed to what is told, is subtle and delicate.
The real one, I mean, is just a page, a trivial sheet of paper with some words of great value.
They describe one of the simplest and least respected memories. It regards what life is worth fighting for. They are few and could stay in the palm of your hand. Or a page, exactly like this one.
Therefore, once I recover the precious ingredient, I clear my voice and I sing. Yes, I sing at the top of my voice as long as the vocal tails will hold. And you, my friend, you can't help but listen to my tattered but passionate warblers.
Because what I'm trying to intone is not just my song, but ours. It is the soundtrack of the meeting that brings us one in front of the other, every day, from the very first one, until today.
It is the hymn of a victory and a defeat, of one or the other, at its worst.
At its best, it is when you decide to combine your voice with mine, even if only to show you are a better singer than me. And I am also willing to give you that, if it means peace.
We could be everything, we could discover all.
We could even grow and finally become adults.
If only we stopped wasting our time with this dull game.
Of bricks and wars...
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Stories and News No. 1175
Life, death and miracles.
We would all like to tell you about that.
About ourselves, possibly a distant day, at the end of our overrated existence.
More than ever about our children, but in real time of their maximum splendor.
When everything is still possible.
Too bad that miracles are so rare for the most unfortunate around the world, guilty only of being on the right place at the worst time.
That is why this brief story can only evoke life and death
of Raja, since her miracle would have been ‘surviving the bomb’.
Anyway, we could talk about life and death. So, let’s tell them both as if they were two distinct creatures.
Let's start with the most painful, so we immediately get rid of it.
Raja's death was born in 1997 in the United States, specifically in an ammunition plant in Milan, Tennessee.
The death of Raja has a complicated and difficult name to remember, like all the uncomfortable fragments of the past, from which, precisely because of our distraction, we do not learn anything.
In fact, Raja's death is called CBU-52 B/B. But behind the anonymous and apparently innocuous acronym, like the most dangerous pitfalls for the helpless souls of this planet, lies a horrible beast: cluster munition.
Nevertheless, if we seriously wish to reflect on the evil genealogical tree of this unacceptable story, we cannot avoid recalling that the aforementioned device has equally repugnant parents.
I am referring to the Nazi Germany.
We could go on by going back, ancestor after ancestor, on such an obtusely bloodline, however, but maybe I could spare you the unpleasant journey.
Raja's death has distant origins, where the most insane nature of the human being has fallen in love with its most cynical ambition for power. Affection corresponded as misrepresented in the most clamorous way, since what was between them was everything except love. And among the aberrations of that we can also include what happened on March 23, 2018, when a young girl was sheltered by a tree a few meters from home, trying to enjoy the well-deserved refreshment with her mother.
This is the day on which the aforementioned death came into the world, striking an entire family’s heart, after having fallen on the most tender and fragile fruit of the latter.
Raja's disappearance is what unreasonably remains, is what we brought to light and nurtured as if it were our daughter, instead of the real one.
At the same time, here is her brief existence.
Raja's life began on a Yemen farm in 2004 and lasted only fourteen years.
Raja's life is made up of every single happy instant she spent with Amira, her mother, and her father, who today is forced to share their bitter mourning with the world.
To tell the truth, with the due hindsight, all the other moments spent together, although less pleasant, are worthy of regret.
Because they have been lived with the innocent confidence of having so much time on the way.
Because Raja’s life is a unique flower deprived of its petals.
It is a butterfly with the gift of the present but with its wings cut off.
It is a beautiful fairy tale without a final and even less a moral.
It is a song written to never be sung and a tight embrace with wind and dust, with tight eyes and ancient tears to act as witnesses.
Here we are at the end, then.
This is the life of Raja and also her death.
But, perhaps, a miracle is still possible, although fueled by a very weak and remote hope.
That this latest, neglected and bitter, human story instilled once and for all the definitive doubt in most of you about who the monsters and the victims of the world really are.
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Stories and News No. 1174
Listen.
Listen to me.
Listen and think carefully about the public speeches of the most famous leaders.
I am talking about the most quoted, shared, tagged or just trolled. The result is the same, nowadays, and you know it. The most important thing is that we talk about it.
So, take note of this: the future belongs to the patriots.
Yes, you heard fine and better understood, I hope.
Also keep this in mind: an extraordinarily unique place on the planet earth like the Amazon rainforest is not being devastated.
Exactly, their words are precisely these.
Consequently, consistently on this trail, let's stop once and for all with thinking and acting collectively and collaboratively.
Enough with trying to unite and mediate, meet halfway and look for common points with which to compensate and, above all, minimize the conflicting differences.
All of that belongs to the past.
The future is on the wall, my sovereign friend.
Friend…
Who are you?!
Let’s say just sovereign, period.
In any case, you should know that the new dawn will be only for us, the private garden’s guardians.
Only mixing exclusively among blood relatives we will...
No, wait, this is too much, we have not yet reached this point. But we will get there, you will see.
In the meantime, I am referring to citizens proven by the sacred regulatory paper attesting of belonging to the same nation.
Unless the continuous lines on the geopolitical map will be distorted, that is clear.
In this case, to anticipate possible contradictions, go back to point one, but stay on a generic field: the future belongs to us.
Us who? You could ask. And if you do, it means that you are one of those. Therefore, give me your passport or any kind of residence permit. Then let's see if you are still talking.
On the contrary, rejoice.
Because we will survive.
Thanks to a little word: no.
The art of denial is our most powerful weapon.
The Amazon forest is not being devastated, as I said at the beginning.
But there is more.
The earth's temperature is not increasing.
Glaciers are not melting.
The sea level is not rising.
Water is not ending.
The desertification of the planet is not happening at all.
Well, now don't bring up your studies, because it's easy to talk when you read books, you find important documents and proven information, learning more about the topics and foreign languages, making cultural journeys, visiting historical places and talking to people different from you.
The real world, where real people live, is ours, inside the difficult life of those who have understood everything by staying at home incessantly glued to the monitor typing always the same short word: no.
It's not like you say.
Things are not as complex as you think.
There is no reason to worry.
Neither about the scorching climate nor the dying forests.
Because it is not our truth that burns, but yours.
It is not worth it, ultimately, to shift the focus from yourself to anyone.
In any case, if you wished to stop our walk and replace us, well, given how high we have come to make ourselves heard, in the future you must do something more and better than just write and scream water is insufficient, icebergs are melting and oceans are rising...
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Stories and News No. 1173
Once upon a time the age of contradictions.
I am talking about our time, these days.
In other words, superficially generalizing, we could also claim to live in the age of global people’s migration, relying on the inevitable subject in the middle of political confrontation.
However, it could also be the terrorism topic, an equally abused one as a touchstone for the alleged reliability of the aspiring government leader.
Do you remember when the future rulers had to solve problems, guarantee progress and above all give work?
Today, as long as they give security, or the illusion of the latter, well, half of the chair is already occupied.
We could also declare that we live in the period in which climate change is the priority inside the international discussion.
We could say this and that, however, in my humble opinion, the contradiction is what most defines today's society.
Take for example the recent survey conducted by the British group Hope not Hate on a sample of more than a thousand people between the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Brazil, France, Poland, USA and Italy.
The main questions related to the aforementioned climate changes and the results are particularly interesting, especially with regard to my country.
In fact, we, Italians, are at the first place among those
questioned, among those who strongly agree that the world faces a climatic emergency, that global warming will soon become extremely dangerous without a big cut in emissions, and that the time to save the planet it's running out.
You know who's on the second? Bolsonaro's Brazil...
Ergo, contradictions.
That is, immigration, terrorism and climate change.
As if they were disjointed phenomena, which could be faced separately, through an obtuse fragmentation of the intellect and personal sensitivity.
As if we ourselves were truly worthy of meaning in the general picture, where the interests and reasons of the individual were considered priority over those of all.
So here is what happens, often, in electoral disputes, as in bar fights, or better, in the most current social network bulletin boards.
There are copious arguments and often insults, leaping from one subject to another, sheltered by a very dull solution of continuity.
A kind of wall, used once again to obscure the understanding of things, as well as to hinder travelers' journey.
Because perhaps, opening precious loopholes within it, we could reflect on the fact that according to the United Nations by 2050 there will be between twenty-five million up to a billion people forced to leave their country because of climate change.
Then, insisting on this virtuous habit, we could consider how much the terrorist groups profit from the crisis and poverty due to military and civil conflicts, but exacerbated and made unsustainable by drought and famine caused by climatic upheaval.
Once upon a time, therefore, the era of migrants and terrorists, as well as the crazy and destructive climate.
In a word, the time of contradictions.
That is, of a humanity that has the only chance to survive inside the ability in overcoming them by combining the obvious dots that bind together the most compelling questions.
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Stories and News No. 1172
This is what happens today, in particular.
This is also what has been happening for some time, along the border between what is beautiful within the word ‘humanity’ and the mad as the dull contradiction of the latter.
It is a narrow line that oppresses the heart and soul as well as the intellect. It is a promised land and at the same time a prison in which we all deceive ourselves of living as the elected ones, as if the handcuffs that bind the neighbor, even just a breath away from us, do not hold our wrists too.
Well, in detail, inside a station in Foggia, Italy, some people were fined for having offered, without the authenticated train ticket, warm milk and precious blankets to some homelesses.
€ 16.67, can you understand?
This is the price of guilt, in the place where some go, others arrive.
This is the defect of a voluntary act, blamable of solidarity.
This is the measure with which the current legislation takes its distance from those who choose to obey the reasonableness of their conscience instead of the incoherence of the citizens' constraints.
Yet the law is the law, there is no doubt about that.
It is what, in the long run, guarantees balance and sometimes quiet living to the multitudes that in ever-increasing numbers insist on occupying the same space.
Which, like it or not, resembles every day with greater precision to the aforementioned border. Maybe the day will come when, mortifying the hopes of creatures, only apparently naiver than us, to reach the dreamed horizon, we will discover that unlike them we have been satisfied living only on the edge of that marvelous picture.
Read us all as the people of the frame, since the painting inside was burned to not allow others to reach it.
Nevertheless, it must be reiterated that the written rule among the people has an impeccable value.
However, where the intentional consistency in our civil life is reduced to the mere instrument to tax every literal encroachment, when we will reach the extremity of such a purpose, we will divide the world into two antagonistic and alternative parts, such as water and oil.
On the one hand the guardians of the aforementioned limit and on the other what remains in the world trying to overcome it, obviously without the necessary ticket.
It is evident that we will not be able to survive for long, forced into such a delirious allegory.
The human brain, if not the heart, must necessarily offer solutions to the accident called life.
Because it is inevitable that the love for the latter leads us to contradict the conventions on which we have built stations, buildings, roads and of course walls and ports.
On the other hand, since the entire universe exists, life, I repeat, and affection for the latter, overcome the limits of nature itself every day, at any moment.
How could we expect them not to do it even with those established by men?
However, in the absurd eventuality one claims such a megalomaniac right, however legalized, how can we to think of being able to sanction the mere existence?
Can you be guilty of birth?
And survival?
Well, in the same way, it is equally foolish to hinder the path of those who, with their bodies, become air and water, food and heat to help the poor of the earth.
Regardless of which law required it.
Because it would be like punishing the air itself, as well as water, food and heat.
In a word, life...
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Stories and News No. 1171
Recent research has found that plastic pollution contaminates the earth's fossils with exponential growth since 1945.
As a result, after the Bronze and Iron Age, scientists suggest to define the current period in which we live as the Plastic Age.
That's why this is just another story, but a plastic one.
Once upon a time, there was a world of plastic. I mean our planet, but you may pretend it's someone else's.
On the other hand, that’s the most common human habit, nowadays. I’m talking about the one that sees us punctually devoted to pass all our others.
However, what’s the problem?
This is a plastic tale, so the life we have built in it, as well the inhabitants we’ve become.
Plastic citizens, with all the advantages.
Because the inhabitants of plastic like to bend, to genuflect before the strong chief on duty.
Never breaking is considered a good thing, even if it’s a shame to not break up in pieces for good, from time to time.
While broken we can rebuild, maybe reinvent ourselves.
We could still change and improve.
The best hope is to survive, without ever aspiring to anything more.
Nevertheless, the real problem of plastic humanity is to see others’ life as plastic stuff in general.
We get drunk and replete without restraint and then we could wash our conscience by recycling.
However, not all plastic creatures have surrendered to that, you know?
Many, most, have not signed for this.
This is what they say at the very beginning of the journey and it’s what they have dreamed too many times between tears in a corner of their own life and a mad scream in the darkness of the room.
To them surviving could be a necessity, perhaps the only chance, but never a free choice.
They don’t bow before destiny and often, after a shipwreck, increase their weight beyond nature by embracing each another, going down relentlessly at the bottom of the sea, instead of floating like the lucky bathers who steal the sun from the sky without deserving it.
Because there are many kinds of plastic, and those who find it in the flowing blood and in the air that flows in the lungs, without ever having wanted it, they prefer rather to melt like plastic in the presence of that same sun.
Everything but believing that the increasing heat of its rays is something normal.
Anyway, don't worry. I’m not so naive to believe that a plastic story could change things.
Especially in a society where the rhythm of mutual love and of every feeling that is able to unite us is marked by plastic hearts. Furthermore, if the main organ that makes us alive is such, as well will be brain and soul.
We communicate emotions and thoughts with plastic words. So, everything may be said and taken back within a minute, recycled the next day and a moment later mixed with every kind of nothing as if it were something.
Because this is the deception from plastic and those who are made of it.
It can become anything, just using the right color and the most fashionable shape. Those who, penalized at birth, or lacking sufficient wealth, cannot afford such winning combinations.
On the other hand, the entertainment world will always need new extras and as well plastic spectators.
They cost little, often nothing, and if they do not do the required work, they are easily replaceable.
The coordinates to reach them are out there, or there behind, in the market below, sheltered from the equally plastic surface of sticky social networks. And it takes little to hire them. It is enough to know how to conceive light sentences, elementary phrases and extremely simple thoughts that even a puppet could share them.
I mean plastic slogans in which nothing is serious, nothing is real, or true, but it seems so. And you can make them yours, to share them with peers and shout with impunity in the face of those you hate, regardless of whether the hatred is founded or not.
Well, this is a story that has no happy ending, I'm sorry about that.
The past fairy tales, like humans made of flesh, they aged, perished and nourished the earth to become other stories, perhaps better inside the memories and in the lives of others.
In those like this one the ending moral is that in the morning, after the last page, one and only one thing will really survive.
Plastic…
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Stories and News No. 1170
This story comes from an afternoon of few months ago.
I was late and I was in a hurry. When that happens I tend to bend my head down, on the sidewalk, prompted to do so by the fear of stumbling or, at worst, falling.
I never liked hurry and, since I can remember, I try to move from home in time, so that I can enjoy the beauty of every journey.
Read also that as the many gifts that await us along the travel between the departure and the arrival.
Well, that day, I began to notice some book pages on the ground.
They were scattered one after the other, some I noticed under a parked car and others ended up in a bush.
I took a handful of seconds to look at one up close. I crouched and saw that the paper was yellowed, then aged.
I didn't know the title of the novel, but it's not important here. That is, it is immensely, but to me, I keep it for myself, I hope you don't mind.
On the contrary, I would like to share with you where the thoughts on those lost pages led me.
Torn and then thrown away, who knows when, by whom and more than ever why.
The first thing I thought was that, if I hadn't looked down at that moment, I would never have noticed their presence.
Usually, when I walk on the street, my eyes wander frantically on my fellows and all living beings almost always earn my utmost attention.
It would have been a pity, in my humble opinion, since in this way I would have missed the stimulating fantasizing about who the mysterious person and his reasons are in getting rid of a whole book, piece by piece, word by word.
Consequently, I found myself wondering if this observation did not conceal a greater depth, perhaps with a further general value and, as the days went by, I realized that the answer was affirmative.
The metaphor is clear and probably is able to exhaustively describe what is happening to us all, in these frantic and confused times.
The only difference is that hurry was my favorable counselor, or messenger of a forgotten tale left behind by invisible protagonists.
Nevertheless, it’s an exception to the rule that sees calm and nonchalance towards other people's worries to allow us to see the wonders beyond the boundaries of the viral realm.
Every day the burning anxiety and the blind ambition of being able to be part of the latter at all costs is keeping us away from a lots of other forgotten pages.
Sometimes they are stories, or as in the above case, just fragments.
They are often real human beings whose weight in the privileged plot is so evanescent that in order to observe them with the right sharpness we need such a wide gaze we could use only with the help of all the effort and time from our distracted heart.
Many times, beyond the sacred confines of the artificial horizon that we are obsessed with, there are also shreds of ourselves.
All the memories that we have mistakenly considered trivial.
Those whom we have branded in the same way, guilty of having only touched us for a fleeting moment.
But above all, the fragile baggage of dreams and hopes that we too soon dismissed as childish or even dangerous.
Well, let it be due to haste rather than calm, I hope that you, too, will have the luck to find once in a while your lost pages...
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Stories and News No. 1169
Once upon a time a land.
You could also call it State or Nation, Republic and democracy.
Nevertheless, using expressions such as a set of citizens, or even daring to bring up the much-undervalued community of individuals, you would still not be wrong.
Because you would always be talking about the same concept: a place inhabited by human beings, whose related existence is, in this case, regulated by a specific government’s condition.
You could also call theme as the administrators of public affairs, or those who have been appointed to represent all the inhabitants, facilitating their requests and guiding the community towards a better quality of existence.
In any case, you would be right.
Because the task and the associated responsibilities would be the same: to preserve the present of a population with absolute consideration, working hard to guarantee its future.
Present and future, this is where I hoped this brief history would lead us.
Words whose meaning has been neglected for too long by my generation and by those that preceded it.
So, take what follows as a mere provocation.
That is, as a naive fairy tale.
Despite progress and efforts, imagine if for once we could operate a sort of paradoxical restriction to the voting right, turning the current age limits upside down.
Let us imagine that the right to vote was granted only to minors, not the other way round.
Anyway, present and future should not be topics of their authoritative competence?
Who better than the one who lives the actual time with the greatest involvement, with his eyes at the same time perpetually turned to the future, could suggest the most sensible questions to deal with?
Instead of letting ourselves perpetuating the affection towards answers that have not worked properly even in the past...
However, the real wonder would take place during the subsequent election campaign.
No unscrupulous populist could take advantage of the ignorance of the new voters. Most of the young people are inexperienced and sometimes childlike, but the stubborn dedication to feed the absolute disinformation about facts is clearly an adult obsession.
No barker looking for easy chairs could exploit their fear.
Courage, sometimes reckless, but often praiseworthy is a requirement that they still have intact, while the blind and obtuse panic is a virus that obscures, on the contrary, many of their elder fellow citizens, from whom they must defend themselves strenuously every day.
No one will be able to deceive them with the usual false promises.
Teenagers will have so many flaws, but they also have the merit of having the innate ability to perceive whoever stands before them without credibility and with the sole intent to lie.
Then, the best show would be seeing the searchers for
power forced to speak clear and simple, without wasting time on useless as well as fraudulent frills, addressing the essential and priority issues to those who take precedence over us all, in the present as well as in the future.
Starting from the care of the environment and the whole nature, education and culture, sports, as well as support for each family, without any distinction, of which young people are a fundamental part.
On the other hand, fable or not, they are the real heart of our society. But for once they would have that decision-making power that would force us to listen to their most immediate requests, as well as dreams and hopes.
Honestly and with the utmost realism, do you really believe that they could do worse than we have done so far?
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Stories and News No. 1168
Here we are, at the end of the day, no matter how much we can rant and scream, pontificate and even insult, the meeting with the others beyond the boundaries of our moral solitude could only be reduced to that.
Fragments.
More or less sensitive or exploitable fragments of photos,
news and more than ever lives that necessarily need a much larger number of human details to understand them.
It’s one of our main problems modern, people of this hyper-connected society, made up of perpetually running clock hands and eyes and ears that can't wait to jump to another digital table, to enjoy new, flavorless but so sparkling food.
Because it should be obvious at any age and for any IQ that single humans’ story is not physically synthesizable in such a tiny portion of pixels.
None of the protagonists of the latter really would like it, not even us. And above all, in many, too many, they surely don’t deserve it.
Oscar and his daughter Valeria’s passage on this earth was composed of priceless pieces that will be infinitely precious to those who will be forced to survive with the void generated by their premature death.
Nevertheless, they have immense value also for the rest of the world which has somehow come into their sad story.
Like so many, like everyone else, as you and me, and like so many unfortunate creatures of this land who earn the doleful record of the five minutes of popularity in the worst moment of their lives, that young father, that fragile little girl, have been something else.
Once upon a time Oscar also had the size of a child, just like his daughter.
You may read both as the legitimate offspring of the world with a baggage full of dreams and rights to which we all must pay sacred attention; and no one feels sufficiently innocent or distant.
At the same time, during the few months in which Valeria deeply breathed and cried with the same commitment, learned to imitate the smile and to design it on her face with wonderful spontaneity, to know the difference between falling and falling, but then getting up again, and to experience the eternal dance between the inimitable warmth of parents’ closeness and the indescribable sadness due to their temporary absence, there were no photographers’ flashes and reporters to observe it.
However, consciously choosing to ignore such an evidence, we would make a great mistake, which has now become the chronic myopia of heart and conscience of an entire generation.
Facing with the bitter image that has once again become viral for unclean reasons we have the obligation to widen our gaze and find out what was left out of the frame, however feverishly clicked and a second later shared, erasing all memory.
For example, Oscar and Valeria had respectively a wife and a mother named Tania, who was ready to join them on the privileged bank of their adverse fate.
We must not be afraid to imagine the three in the folds of the past before all that is usually consumed by the ravenous mass media.
Because we should never be afraid to mirror ourselves in the misfortune of others, instead of striving obsessively to find space in the stars’ success.
I'm talking about common stuff, you know?
A mother who wants the best for her only daughter.
A father who wishes to keep the promise made to the woman he has decided to love.
We'll be fine, honey.
We’ll be happy, my dear.
We’ll all have what our parents could not even conceive, was the common, shared aspiration.
For all of that, a single photo, a good article and, maybe, not even the most prestigious editorial would not be enough. And yet, the fate of the victims portrayed, when they could still be saved, it’s decided in an instant with a quick and absent-minded click on the mouse, as by an electoral vote.
There is something terribly wrong before and after every second we burn our time to continue this mad rush.
If we really want to change things, to remedy about them, or at least to try to reverse the dangerous curve of our history, perhaps, we must begin to collect from the ground all the fragments we have left behind on the road, before the wind of our inhumanity will completely disperse them...
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Stories and News No. 1167
Once upon a time our body, that despite the technological regression, and the illusion of digital closeness, in shapes and large part of its substance it’s still human.
It happens during the summer, on the beaches, at the sea or near any waterway, remembering what inevitably makes us similar, and often identical.
In one word, refuges.
This is really one of the most reliable measures of nature itself that distinguishes us as living creatures, in every time and place.
As refugees, safe in the womb of a mother, we perceive the delineation of the contours and the precious and fragile contents that define us as unique.
Everyone, without any exception, we come into the world torn from the right and ideal heat, but from that moment we desperately try to return into the beloved former condition.
In other words, protected from the primeval refuge.
With the feeling that nothing has changed since those few months, we face life, growing and suffering as if they were the same thing, and everything could be smooth or arduous as long as we may count or not, in every moment we will feel the need, on the possibility of find refuge in the place where we were raised.
Call them parents, family, use the word home too, yours or mine, the result doesn’t change, because where they act with the sufficient amount of affection and care, at any time you will encounter obstacles too big for you, you will always know where come back.
To find refuge, as I said.
Thus, as a result of all that, the true protagonist of this brief tale, our body, learns what it itself suggests, in the same way as the lesson that our parents gave us over time. And if you have the good luck that everything will work out for the best, if you’ll need it, there will be something or someone to take care of you.
To offer you the refuge you deserve.
Anyway, we are dealing with nature on its perfection, demonstrated by multiple examples.
When the memory removes from our mind some excessively unpleasant memories, it gives refuge to what could make us suffer more than necessary.
When the pain is too much to be compressed in the heart, the tears will drag it out of you, seeking refuge in the others’ compassion.
Where the fear of living, or dying, will become unbearable by the undeniable limits of your imagination, the latter will show you a magical gift inherent in itself: the much-undervalued fantasy, or the ability to fill the gaps carved by the life’s erosion through all the possible, or impossible, wonders.
Well, I still consider it one of the human refuge that I could hardly do without for the rest of my time.
Because we are a refuge for ourselves, even before others, for better or worse.
Our most vulnerable feelings suddenly become impregnable fortresses, fearing that they will might be contaminated by others, even if the unexpected mixture could turn into love.
Meanwhile, however, we believe to protect ourselves and we are proud of having done everything alone.
Nevertheless, we are also capable of the opposite, when our fragile soul finally decides to break down the bricks of pride that make up the walls on the edge of our solitude.
In that extraordinary moment, we are refuge for one another, and together, in turn, we can be the same for those who listen or watch us, from near or far.
It’s like when we see people dancing, lucky for the sole reason of having found the courage to trust the musical notes, and we feel the irresistible desire to join the dance as an instinctive reaction.
This is also the example of how many things in the world could offer refuge to anyone, for free.
I'm talking about music, which despite our negligence in the general storytelling, was here before us and will be there later.
I'm talking about the blank page that had the generosity to host these words of mine.
I'm talking about you reading them, showing the patience to welcome them.
Thank you, really, because right now, even just for a moment, you are giving refuge to my dreams inside you. And I know how many we all have of unspoken desires, to appreciate how much the gift of making space to others is worth.
That’s why I strongly think that, if today is dedicated to refugees in the world it’s like saying that it’s everyone's celebration.
Because seeking refuge, or giving it, are the most frequent and significant actions of living as human beings.
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Stories and News No. 1166
Once upon a time a school.
To be precise, when I say school, I mean the building, but also inside.
At least in this short story the students and their precious teachers were one with the foundations, the supporting structure, the windows and the ceiling, as well as the walls.
Walls which – it should always be remarked – are not only allowed to divide, but also to support and protect the weakest ones, not just the opposite.
Well, the previous night someone left testimony of his thought, or delirium, on the walls next to the entrance gate.
Italians first, this is the writing that children and parents saw the next morning. It would have been impossible not to see it, as it was very large.
Some of the adults commented briefly on that, some complained about the usual carelessness by the education ministry, but most tried to ignore the aggressive message.
It was certainly not a new phrase in their eyes and their ears; and it's well known. When you get used to a slogan that incessantly precipitates from above as if it was normal stuff, like rain or snow, regardless of how ignoble or virtuous it might be, it becomes an integral part of the common language.
However, that day, in front of that wall, there weren’t only adults.
In this regard, I’ll be wrong, but I'm still convinced that our greatest chance to get out of the darkest periods is that in the world there are more witnesses to our mistakes than we realize. Even if we persist in every age to underestimate them.
In particular, a group of fourth grade children was very impressed by the warning and once they reach the threshold of the classroom they decide to go along with it.
For the record, some kids stopped at the edge of the door: Jian, Oksana, Ahmed, Ileana and Rodrigo, superficially definable the exotic portion of the classroom, if only limiting ourselves to negligible trifles like the name’ singularity or the relatives’ origins.
Italians first, they thought in unison, or we should give precedence to them. No problem, if this was the rule, they seemed to say. In other words, we’re used to something worse. This is acceptable, you know? That’s okay, we’ll enter immediately afterwards. Just let us enter.
It seemed to have ended there, and it would have been so, if we weren't talking about young creatures, who are by nature devoted to surprising those who trudge behind them due to excess of prejudice, rather than years.
In fact, Giorgio, Maria, Daniela, Piero, Claudio one and Claudio two also stopped on the threshold.
Italians first, they thought more or less at the same time. That is, it’s up to us to be kind and polite first, giving priority to those who come from afar.
It seemed the right conclusion about the impasse, but other comrades eager to differentiate themselves. And, sorry, but the diversity of points of views and the willingness to freely express them are among the healthiest innate aspects of humans, and it should be encouraged.
In this case, Sara called Saretta, Francesco known as Fra, Silvano known as Silvano, as well as Gaia, Katia and Fabio - also famous as the chronic latecomers - froze like their mates a moment before entering the room.
Italians first, they thought while crossed by sincere contrition for the continuous entries far beyond the bell. And with shared conviction they apologized publicly to their companions. Because first us, who were here before the foreigners, should be those to give the good example on how to behave. And leave to the teachers the task of being teachers.
Well, after a short time all the children stopped at the door for the most disparate reasons, when their teacher arrived.
The woman asked for explanations and as soon as she realized what had happened she rejoiced.
She smiled with sorrow and hope, the best weapons against the shouted and even legalized obtuseness.
"Come in," she said, inviting the children to step into the classroom with a delicate hand gesture.
"Italians first?" One of them asked.
No, was the answer in her look as much the words.
Everybody first.
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